Pit Of Despair
by Dragon'sHost
Summary: Juvia finds herself at the bottom of a pit, and her every insecurity magnified by the darkness. Armada project: 46/365


**This one kicked my ass six ways to Sunday. That being said, I'm rather pleased with it. I think I said what I needed to with it.**

 **I hope you enjoy this pairing as much as I do!**

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A simple job, she'd told herself. All she had to do was accept a straightforward, simplistic job, and get away for a while. Because that was what you did when you loved someone – you gave them their space, and if they came back to you then they were yours. Gray would change his mind about his so-called girlfriend and come running into her arms, in a grand romantic gesture.

But she'd been away for a while now, and Gray never had been one for grand romantic gestures no matter how much Juvia wished for it. It didn't look like Gray was coming for her, after all. Even though she'd gone on the easiest fetch quest available and hadn't returned for two weeks. For that matter, no one had come looking for her. Not even Gajeel. Well… okay, the fact that Gajeel hadn't wasn't entirely surprising to her – he probably thought that she could handle herself no matter the danger. And she could, usually. Just not this time around, it seemed.

The loneliness of her predicament, and the fact that no one seemed to be looking for her, was hitting her hard. She wasn't really needed at Fairy Tail, was she? Most of her days were spent hanging around Gray, or making Gray-related items for her personal use. Day in, and day out. What did she bring to Fairy Tail, she wondered, that someone else couldn't do better? Cana was a leader, the Raijinshuu were reliable in times of need, Laxus was beyond powerful, Team Natsu had saved the world multiple times on their own.

Her existence was superfluous. To Gray. To the guild.

Normally she would dismiss these darker thoughts with ease; banishing them to the corner of her mind that they'd crawled out from. It was simpler in the light of day, surrounded by her friends and their love, though. It was a much harder task when trapped in a crumbling temple, full of traps that not even Juvia's water body could get her out of. Such as the anti-magic rune trap at the bottom of a pitfall that she hadn't seen in time. Not only could she not use magic to escape, but the rope she'd brought with her was useless, too. Even if should could throw it to the top of the hole, there was nothing she could loop it around to pull herself out. Jumping also didn't work – she couldn't escape the influence of the anti-magic spell that easily, unfortunately.

It might have been a different situation if she'd gone on the job with someone. If she had just… grit her teeth, and worked up the courage to ask for help. But the rejection she'd faced had stung, hard, and she hadn't been able to meet anyone's gaze, let alone pose the question to – too afraid of being turned away, not wanted by the people she cared about the most. It was a hard truth that she hadn't wanted to look at in the eye, and now she was paying the consequences.

No one was coming to rescue her. Not this time.

Juvia wasn't sure how long she'd been trapped in the pit. The torches she'd lit on the way in had sputtered out a long time ago, and it was hard to gauge time indoors as it was, let alone in the pitch dark. Every once in a while, something would skitter past her, unseen, and that was the most Juvia had to go on in terms of the passage of time.

At the moment, there was one creature that was persistently making noise somewhere above her. She wished it would go away – the sounds were downright nerve-wracking. Hopefully it wasn't a rat. Juvia took a sip from her water bottle, determined to ignore the creature. Surely if they were getting in, then there was a way out, right? Granted, it was probably rat-size, now that she thought about it.

A sharp pain bloomed on her skull, causing her to flinch and hiss. Touched her head, her fingers came away wet, smelling sharply of iron. A rock must have dropped onto her, she realized. "Just what Juvia needed," she grumbled. Internally, she debated about whether she should turn on the flashlight in order to check the wound. There was only so much battery life left on the thing, and she didn't want to waste it if she could help it.

Sighing, she decided to use the light after all. It would be bad if her head bled for a long time, so she needed to bandage it somehow. Blood loss, on top of being stuck in the pit, was not a good combination.

More skittering above her had her glaring up at the top of the pit. "Go away!" she shouted at whatever was up there. "Leave Juvia alone already!"

"…Juvia?" a voice responded, faint and incredulous. "Juvia is that you?"

Hope burst inside of her chest, bright as sunlight. "Hello?" she called out. Clambering to her feet, she stared upwards, eyes straining in the dim lighting. "Hello?" again she shouted, when there was no response.

A moment later, the light of a torch approached the top of the pit, and she burst into tears at the welcome sight of her guildmate coming to her rescue.

It wasn't Gray, of course.

But she hadn't expected Freed Justine, of all people, to be the one to come looking for her.

"Juvia," the green haired man said, relief clear on his face in the flickering light of his torch. "Thank goodness. Are you alright? Any injuries?"

"Juvia has a few bruises, but Juvia is fine. There's an anti-magic spell down here, so Juvia was stuck."

Her rescuer nodded. "I have some rope I can lower down to you. Are you in any shape to climb?"

Grabbing the strap of her pack, Juvia rose to her feet in one fluid motion. "Yes, Juvia can climb."

Freed disappeared from the edge of the pit for a moment, reappearing a minute later. Rope spooled by Juvia's feet, tossed over the lip. "I've tied off the other end, and I'll help keep it taut," he informed her.

She picked it up, gripping it tightly. "Juvia is ready!"

Between them, the line pulled taut, and Juvia began to ascend. Her feet struggled to find purchase on the pit's wall, and her hands hurt from the coarse rope. Muscles she wasn't accustomed to using burned as she slowly made her way up to safety. When she finally heaved herself over the edge, she collapsed from sheer exhaustion, mixed with relief.

Sweat was beading on Freed's brow, but he smiled at her and started gathering up his rope.

"Juvia…" she said, still breathing heavily, "Juvia is so glad Freed came. Thank you. Thank you for rescuing Juvia. Juvia will…" The water mage paused for a second to catch another breath. "Juvia will never go exploring alone again. And maybe Juvia will learn how to freeclimb, too."

Freed laughed at her last sentence. A moment later, he sat down heavily next to her. "I'm just glad that you're safe."

She peered up at him through her eyelashes for a long minute as they both rested. Then she sat up, looking Freed straight in the eye. "How did you know?" she asked, her tone serious and her brow furrowed in confusion. "How did you know where to find Juvia?"

"The rain," he answered easily. "I figured that if you were in trouble, there would be a great amount of unnatural rain in an area not expecting it. After that, it was a simple matter of determining the scope of the rainfall, and then calculating where you would be in the epicenter. This ruin seemed like the most likely location. It's just fortunate that the anti-magic circle didn't stop your rain from forming, or it would have taken me much longer to find you."

It was the first time Juvia had ever felt grateful for her rain. But it what he said after that really caught her attention. "It would have taken longer…?"

Holding her gaze, Freed informed her, "I would have found you eventually. I wouldn't have stopped looking until I did."

"But why?" Her voice felt small. "Why were you looking for Juvia?" She was nothing to Freed, right? Gray was Juvia's everything, Gajeel was her friend, and Lucy her rival. None of them had come for her, but this man had. Juvia couldn't wrap her head around it.

"I noticed how hurt you were when Gray…" He coughed suddenly, and his gaze left hers. "Well, I noticed. So when it took a long time for you to come back… I got pretty worried and left without telling anyone myself."

Juvia giggled at the thought of him making the same mistake that she did, and she stared in fascination as color entered his cheeks.

"Aside from which… I owe you."

His confession caught her by surprise. "Juvia doesn't understand," she told him.

He shifted, clearly uncomfortable. "It was back when you first joined the guild," Freed said, still not quite meeting her gaze. "When I faced you and Cana… I did you a great disservice. I doubted your love for Fairy Tail, and questioned your loyalty. And then… then you proved me absolutely wrong, made me question what I and the rest of my friends were trying to accomplish with what we were doing. It was largely thanks to your sacrifice that I came to see how wrong our actions were." Green eyes flickered back to meet her startled ones. "I'm so sorry, Juvia. For what I did back then. I was wrong about you. You belong in Fairy Tail."

Tears brimmed in her eyes, flowing down her cheeks before she could stop them. They were the words that Juvia needed to hear the most right then, chasing away every fear and insecurity that the dark pit had stirred up inside of her.

She reached out, and gently touched Freed's hand. "Thank you," she whispered, struggling to bring her voice to bear under the force of her sobs. "Thank you, Freed."

Freed's smile was tentative, but kind.

Yes, Juvia belonged in Fairy Tail.

Maybe not with Gray, she was starting to see.

But Fairy Tail was her home. And there would always be people there that needed her.


End file.
